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Electric Cars

Toyota Motor Corp has scrapped plans for widespread sales of a new all-electric minicar, saying it had misread the market and the ability of still-emerging battery technology to meet consumer demands.

Toyota, which had already taken a more conservative view of the market for battery-powered cars than rivals General Motors Co and Nissan Motor Co, said it would only sell about 100 battery-powered eQ vehicles in the United States and Japan in an extremely limited release.

Re: Electric Cars

It's all about battery technology and price. I think the Chevy Volt would be a great car for $25K since it has both battery and gas powered. The bad thing is that the Volt costs $60-$75k to build and even with a $7,500 government handout they still can't sell them at $33,500.

Re: Electric Cars

Buy an Electric Car?

No thanks. I'm in the camp with the guy that stated..."The gasoline powered internal combustion engine" type vehicle is gonna be here for a long long time because electric cars will stay prohibitively expensive for a very long time.

Re: Electric Cars

Originally Posted by dmclone

It's all about battery technology and price. I think the Chevy Volt would be a great car for $25K since it has both battery and gas powered. The bad thing is that the Volt costs $60-$75k to build and even with a $7,500 government handout they still can't sell them at $33,500.

Cars like the Nissan Leaf make even less sense.

What does sell are cars with V-8 engines, that are smaller and badder than their 60s and 70s cousins. The new CAFE rules may well spell the end of these cars in the marketplace. What a shame!

Re: Electric Cars

Originally Posted by dmclone

Cars like the Nissan Leaf make even less sense.

It depends. Ecologically, if you have to burn something to make electricity (i.e. coal or gas), you'd be better off burning something in an internal combustion engine directly on the car than burning something in a power plant and suffering transmission line losses getting the electricity to the car. On the other hand, if you've got a bunch of excess hydro, wind, or nuclear (i.e. cheap) electricity on your hands, a "functional" all-electric car seems like a great fit.

Re: Electric Cars

Originally Posted by jbhtexas

It depends. Ecologically, if you have to burn something to make electricity (i.e. coal or gas), you'd be better off burning something in an internal combustion engine directly on the car than burning something in a power plant and suffering transmission line losses getting the electricity to the car. On the other hand, if you've got a bunch of excess hydro, wind, or nuclear (i.e. cheap) electricity on your hands, a "functional" all-electric car seems like a great fit.

IC engines are far less efficient...... however coal is not clean either. we need to go with fully renewable clean wind and solar..... it will take time, but eventually it will be cheap enough for everyone to afford. Hell, relatively nobody but rich people had cars until Henry ford came along...

Re: Electric Cars

We need to treat the batteries like we do gasoline now...Change them at "gas" stations and you have an infrastructure set up to go all electric. Then just need the manufacturers to get us the electric cars that are affordable.

Re: Electric Cars

Originally Posted by cdnlngld

IC engines are far less efficient...... however coal is not clean either. we need to go with fully renewable clean wind and solar..... it will take time, but eventually it will be cheap enough for everyone to afford. Hell, relatively nobody but rich people had cars until Henry ford came along...

If every roof in the US was covered in solar panels, it still wouldn't come close to meeting our needs.

Re: Electric Cars

Originally Posted by Cyclonepride

If every roof in the US was covered in solar panels, it still wouldn't come close to meeting our needs.

Got a link for that (I'm curious, not trying to be combative)? I was under the impression that such an approach (solar panel roofs) could provide plenty of electricity (neglecting issues such as integration into the grid, hail damage, etc...).

Re: Electric Cars

Originally Posted by cdnlngld

we need to go with fully renewable clean wind and solar..... it will take time, but eventually it will be cheap enough for everyone to afford.

Dream on ..... that will not happen. Not in your lifetime, probably not in your great-great grandkids lifetimes. The capacity factor for both are extremely low and not viable as our only energy sources. Not efficient, very high cost, limit capacity, weather dependent.

Re: Electric Cars

Originally Posted by iahawkhunter

Got a link for that (I'm curious, not trying to be combative)? I was under the impression that such an approach (solar panel roofs) could provide plenty of electricity (neglecting issues such as integration into the grid, hail damage, etc...).

Right now it costs around $35K to install a 7KW solar system. That is 7KW, on a roof in Florida, in the middle of the day, in the middle of summer. If you wanted to go off the grid, it would take probably double that capacity, and a pretty big battery, inverter, etc.... so you could sustain power while the sun was down. Not doable right now .... not even close and that's in Florida. If you tried it in Iowa, it would be further from possible by a long ways.

Re: Electric Cars

Originally Posted by iahawkhunter

Got a link for that (I'm curious, not trying to be combative)? I was under the impression that such an approach (solar panel roofs) could provide plenty of electricity (neglecting issues such as integration into the grid, hail damage, etc...).

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